Stay Accountable by texting your partner daily – How to make accountability work with a cell phone.

If you feel an accountability relationship hard to maintain, consider using texting to make it easier.

Most all of us carry our cell phones around with us everywhere we go. Funny how we feel ‘naked’ without our phones!

Picking up the phone and calling sometimes seems intrusive and makes us feel like we are bothering someone, but texting (like email) seems less intrusive. We don’t seem to hesitate to send nonsense and links via email or text, so why not something as important as staying accountable?

How does accountability work via text?

Check in with your partner at least once daily

Ask them to pray for specific items such as stressful or heavy temptations that may be ahead in your day

When you are under heavy temptation, text them immediately – they can send up prayers immediately on your behalf

If you fail text them and confess. A phone call should follow after they get your message

Celebrate victories during your day letting them know you came through

Offer encouragement by sharing quotes or verses that have spoken to you

At the end of the day tell them how you did and rate your day

Staying in contact with your partner daily instead of every few days or weekly will greatly help both of your walks.

These are just a few examples of how to have an accountability relationship via text. Try this out with your partner and let me know how it is working for you.

I have seen the ads for the free accountability software called X3watch for a while, but never tried it out since we have been using other software. Just recently, we bought a new computer, switched internet service and dropped our old internet filtering service. This presented the perfect opportunity to try out some new software and X3watch was one of a few at the top of the list.

I visited xxxchurch.com and downloaded the software very quickly. Installation was very fast as well. The only required actions upon install are to name the computer you are monitoring and to give two email addresses for the reports. That is it.

Give a little thought first before inputting the email addresses. The first email address should be yours so that you can review the same report as your accountability partner. The second email address will be your accountability partner. You both will receive an email confirming that reports will be forthcoming at either 2 or 4 week intervals.

I input my own email address and then my wife’s email address. My email is private to myself and my wife’s is private to herself. I cannot delete the email from her inbox or vice versa. We can both keep tabs on that computer for our children’s usage and each other’s usage. This keeps the whole family accountable. Consider the situation you have and in what way you can maintain the integrity of the accountability.

After two weeks, the report showed up in my email inbox with the subject: X3watch – Accountability report. This report will only show you sites that are possibly questionable.

My report listed only six sites as questionable. None of the sites on my report were pornography related, except for the abattleplan website. It listed a Barbie website and some of it’s subdomains along with a facebook subdomain as questionable. The software did correctly identify this website, but the others were wrongly tagged.

Pros

Free

It is better than not having any accountability software

Unnoticeably runs in the background

Cons

Questionable sites on the report require you to either know what they are or click on the link to review them. You could expose yourself to pornography while checking sites.

There is concern in the criteria for flagging a website as questionable.

Since the software resides on your computer, it could be circumvented by savvy users.

X3Watch accountability software is a basic no frills way to establish internet accountability, however it lacks some very important features to make it totally effective. The reporting leaves much to be desired. Unless the questionable website has an obviously pornographic title, you need to click the link to review the site. Also, the way a site makes the questionable list makes me wonder how well it works. If Barbie and Facebook make the questionable list will the software flag these harmless sites and ignore some pornographic sites? The software sits on your computer and therefore can be circumvented easily by a savvy computer user. Your teen would figure out a way around this.

The bottom line is if you need accountability, this may work for you. You could use this along with Open DNS to get the full suite of accountability and internet filtering. If you are very serious about protecting your and your family’s purity or if you want to really quit using pornography, you should spend some money on better software. The lack of site logging, possible circumvention and the sketchy reporting leave a lot of holes available for the addict to take advantage of.

Accountability is a word that is thrown around much inside Christian circles. Accountability means we have given someone the right to see if we are behaving properly and carrying out what we said we would do. Just like at work when the boss gives you an assignment and then checks up with you frequently to make sure you are moving forward.

We all realize that we are accountable to God, but how often has that thought entered your mind while surfing porn sites? Probably not much. How different would you act if you had someone ask you every few days? Do you think that would help deter you?

We should each have a very close friend who can ask you things such as “Have you been in The Word?”, “How is your prayer life going?”, “Did you ask for forgiveness from your wife like you said you would?” “Have you looked at porn in the last few days?” Someone needs to be able to ask you tough questions to help keep you on the narrow path.

Here are a few tips on what to look for in an accountability partner and how to conduct an accountability relationship.

– The person you choose for accountability should know you (or get to know you) deeply. No superficial weather talk relationship. They need to know you personally and all about your background, family, struggles, etc.

– Your accountability parter should be allowed to ask you any question. Nothing is off limits! You should not be offended by anything they ask. As the asking partner – be sure you are asking questions in love and not in a way that intimidates or Lord over your partner.

– Your accountability partner should look you in the eye and ask: “Have you looked at pornography since our last meeting?” A good accountability partner needs to be direct and to the point. A good follow up question is “How has your thought life been?” Ask these questions at every meeting!

– An accountability partner should be firm but full of grace. What I mean is that your partner should not tolerate the sin of porn (there are no little peaks allowed), but your partner should show grace by praying with you and analyzing what went wrong without “beating you up” about your failure.

– An accountability partner should have your cell number and you his. You should call your partner when you feel the temptation to indulge in porn. Just like a sponsor for AA, your partner should make himself available anytime for prayer, an encouraging word and a meeting.

Your accountability partner is one of your most powerfull tools in your aresenal to defeat porn addiction. Don’t overlook this point and think you can do it on your own. There is power when two or more believers get together.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 “One person could be overpowered, but two people can stand up for themselves. A rope made of three cords is hard to break.”